Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Day 1238 - Not That Book!

The preschool asked the parents to read Dr. Seuss books this month to celebrate his birthday. I jokingly told the preschool director that although I didn't have the time to read a Dr. Seuss book, I would be happy to read Delta of Venus to celebrate Anais Nin's birthday. Awkwardly, I guess erotic literature jokes are not a big hit with preschool directors...

I did volunteer to read a Dr. Seuss book to the kids at the preschool. I asked Andrew and Emma the night before which book I should read to their class. They looked through their bookshelf and selected Fox in Socks. I don't know if you remember that book, but it's basically one long tongue-twisting book of rhymes.

I was a little afraid to read that book to a class of two to three year olds for fear that my tongue may fail me. Trying to say the words "fox" and "socks" over and over again is extremely dangerous...especially on live television (Watch out for those FCC fines!). If I made one slip of the tongue, instead of describing footwear for a fox's foot, I would be describing the only piece of clothing on a college freshman's body while performing acts found in any number of Anais Nin's novels.

So today, I went to the preschool to read Fox in Socks. The teacher introduced me, and thankfully, Andrew and Emma were excited to see me; they have not yet become embarrassed to be with me in public like Lisa has. The teacher pulled up a chair for me, but it looked like it came from a Little People, Big World garage sale. I squatted down and began the story.

I wasn't too sure how attentive the class was going to be towards me. The one thing I was going to do was to change my voice for the Fox and the Knox. When I read the book at home, I use a nasally voice for The Fox and a lower, raspy voice for the Knox. But when I started reading in class, for some reason I ended up using an Urkel-like voice for the Fox and a poor man's impersonation of Jimmy Stewart for the Knox. It was like a very surreal Family Matters episode.

Thankfully, I completed the story without uttering the f-bomb once. All of the kids laughed at all the right places, and the places where they did not laugh, I played a laugh track. I gave Andrew and Emma a hug and told them I would pick them up after nap.

The only mistake that happened was when the teacher told the class to thank me. As the class said thank you, I wanted to tell them, "Let's clap for your teacher's class!" But my tongue finally gave out and I said, "Let's crap for your teacher's ass!"